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So glad you are all well, hope that chunk of roof is not leaking too much. It can be tough when you are feeling shook up from something like a storm to see your SO leave. I know you have to keep going - but I see the other side too. Hope it all settles soon!

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I've been in Minnesota most of the week and doing my best to maintain a recognizable Primal diet. With the exception of some beer and whiskey, I've done pretty well. There are good steak houses in Minneapolis so that makes it easier. Still my tummy has been a bit rumbly due to various indiscretions that I will be glad to put behind me!

SWMBO texted me last night at midnight that the power had just come back. Whew! The damage to our roof was considerably worse than what I could see from the ground, but the roof guy we found came right away and repaired it temporarily and quoted us a reasonable price to fix it. The shingles tore away some of the step flashing along the chimney.

I'm certain that the meat in the freezer is fine. I put a big block of ice in a big ziplock bag into the freezer to serve as a gauge. It's in the middle of all the meat, if it still is a recognizable block, it never thawed. if it is a refrozen amorphous blob, then at some point it thawed totally and presumably all the meat around it did too. I'll know later today when I get home.

The drive Tuesday to the airport on my way here was horrific. In my little neighborhood there were a dozen big trees down, telephone poles snapped and lines dropped or hanging. Bunches of folks a few blocks from us on the water had severe damage to their homes. Fortunately I don't think anybody was hurt nearby, though I understand in New York, New Jersey, and Long Island, the death toll is up near a hundred. So very sad.

My company is still without power, phone, or internet. We have a big generator so we can still work, but the only way we can email is to use our phones and iPads.

One nice thing about the storm, or any major tragedy is how it brings out the best in many people. There is a Facebook page of town residents offering space in their homes, because it's getting cold now, or just hot showers or phone charging for people displaced or without power in town. It's a network of friends of friends so the people are not really strangers. Such a nice thing.

So last night I had a lovely steak and a great big salad (instead of potato) at a great Irish Pub called The Local. I finished the evening with Irish Coffee. What a mistake! Besides being not Primal at all, I was unable to sleep! The sugar and the caffein really affected me. I've been up every hour looking at the clock. At 3:30 AM I just gave up and got up. I paid the $10.00 internet fee and have been online since. (Side note why is it that in cheap, road-side hotels do you get free internet service, but at swanky, downtown hotels it costs $10/day??)

Anyway, I'm glad to be going home. The show was successful, though a dozen exhibiting companies from NY/NJ/New England were no-shows because they couldn't get flights out with the NYC airports closed, and attendance was down as well.

One nice thing was that having lost weight, I received a noticeable amount of attention from the lady folk, including being chatted up at the bar. The days where I'd be interested in partaking in that sort of thing are long over, but it is nice to be found attractive. :-)

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Man, you guys really got clobbered, didn't you? Glad things are starting to head back to normal for you.

That is neat about the Facebook support network. Sometimes it's nice to have our faith in humanity renewed. Hope there hasn't been much trouble with looters in your neck of the woods.

And at least your swanky hotel isn't charging by the hour or the minute. I remember in the bad old days when the cost of using the Internet in hotels was prohibitive. And they're probably charging you because they figure if you can afford to stay there, you can afford the $10, and it won't actually drive your business away.

The three-star hotel we stayed in last week not only had free Wi-Fi, but a computer in the room in case you didn't lug your own laptop along. All included. It was a nice hotel too. It was clean, quiet, and the bed was good, which in my books covers the essentials.

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I am so glad to hear that you and your family are okay and escaped the worst. Once again I think we have kind of an odd parallel - it was bad luck you had a business trip, and it was bad luck I had a car breakdown during this storm week. (At least I think SWMBO considered it bad luck!) And you are a good landlord just like the one I have.

My landlord is just now loading the tree into his truck to take to the dump. It is a fir tree and can't be used for firewood. It is full of sap, what a mess! Smells lovely, though.

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Well I try to be the type of landlord that I would like to have if I were a renter.

I am back home and happy to be. The power is back on, most of the streets are cleared of downed trees and power lines. Even though we were not hit nearly so hard as NY/NJ/LI it was still remarkable how much destruction there was. Because we were on the north edge of the the storm center we got high winds but little rain. The storm surge was bad and accounted for much of the damage.

I don't remember if I posted it and I am too lazy to go back and look, but SWMBO and I decided that if the river across the street rose to the level of the across-the-street-neighbor's big pine tree (in their back yard), we would head to the evacuation shelter in town. I slept downstairs so I could wake up periodically and look. I got up just after midnight to check, but by that time the power was out so there were no streetlamps, and I couldn't really see the tree, because bushes and debris were now obstructing the view, and I couldn't tell where the water level really was. However, since high tide had come I figured the danger was past and I went back to bed.

Well, it turns out that the bushes and debris that obscured the view were the tree itself, which had toppled over and lay partially in the river! The water level went above my imaginary mark. Had I been able to see that, we would have evacuated.

All's well that ends well, but it is a sobering thought.

Everything else is fine, the meat in the freezer is okay, nothing thawed, my block of indicator ice was still recognizably intact. Some chicken on top, where it would be warmest was partially thawed, so that was dinner last night, but the rest is good. SWMBO called a local roofer and they came already and fixed it weathertight, and will come back to repair it permanently when things are more settled.

My happiness at escaping real harm and suffering only a tiny inconvenience is tempered by my shock and sadness at so many people dead and suffering big time. I donated to the red cross efforts already.

So for me, life will return to normal. SWMBO and I will buy a standby generator when the dust settles and prices for them are not driven by panic. Although we managed well enough without one, if we could have not worried about food in the freezer, and the refrigerator and operated the furnace, we would have had hot water and heat, and everything else would have been more comfortable.

We seem to be having these "storms of the century" annually now. I would like to move away from the beach, but it's where SWMBO has always dreamed of living so here we are.

It will be a quiet weekend, all of the local activities planned have been cancelled, trick or treating was postponed by our town until next Wednesday, so we'll add some finishing touches to Boy's costume. Clean up the yard and do some shopping to replace the refrigerator food, much of which spoiled.

And the sun is out and it's a fine cold Autumn day, perfect for a fire in the fireplace and maybe a long walk.

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I highly recommend a generator. As you say, it lends a great deal of comfort to an extended power outage. My landlord turned his on twice a day for an hour or so - we always had hot water and we able to charge our devices, etc.

We called the alarm company and sorted out the alarm. I, of course, took notes for the next occurrence and have great hopes that I can curb that problem immediately.

Glad all is well with you and your family. I am now in the stage of feeling a bit guilty when I watch the news and see how others have fared. That could have been me...but it wasn't...

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I am glad that you have fared relatively well, although it sounds like a very close call.

You could not get me to buy waterfront property for love nor money, as much as I would appreciate it when things were good. Sooner or later, a nasty storm will hit. And nowadays, sooner seems to be the rule. Is your wife (sorry, I totally forget what your acronym stands for) still as thrilled about living where you do? If not, you might consider selling in a couple of years, when people have forgotten Sandy and real estate prices have risen again. I'm sure selling now would be a very bad idea financially.

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@Siobhan and Judg, Yeah, we've been discussing generators all morning. We are intending to do a fairly big kitchen addition in the next two years (it's been put off because of SWMBO's tentative work situation which is now resolved). As part of this renovation we will buy and have installed a large generator that will power the whole house. These are permanently installed units that look like central air conditioning units and they run on natural gas, so there's little maintenance, no need to refill with fuel, and they're quiet to operate. But for the short term I'll get just the typical portable type. I'll pay more (substantially more) for a smaller but very quiet one made by Honda.

Oh, SWMBO stands for "She, who must be obeyed." Its from the old BBC series Rumpole of the Bailey.

So far I've been unable to convince her to move, though each storm weakens her resolve somewhat.

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Could the permanently installed one be hooked up to an alternate source if natural gas lines are severed? Just thinking worst-case scenario here? Although if you also have a smaller portable one, it's perhaps not an issue, as you have a second fall-back position.

LOL@ SWMBO. Happy wife, happy life, is my husband's line. Implementing that in real life has been a bit more of a challenge, but he is getting better at it as the years go by.

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Although you could certainly argue that waterfront property is more apt to suffer storm damage, such things can strike anywhere. The one time in my life that my home was flooded I was far, far from any water. An underground reservoir gave way and caused havoc. One thing about having waterfront property, not that I know much about this, is that you are much more likely to be insured against loss and also more likely to be eligible for government assistance, FEMA or such. So I guess I am saying I am on SWMBO's side. As long as you are happy there and really want to live there, moving would come under the category of letting fear rule your life. Of course I am just talking through my hat as I am far away, have never seen your home, and don't even know the people involved.

And with regard to your comment about being a good landlord, I try to be the kind of tenant that I would like to have. I take care of everything I can but I report anything I think will cause damage or needs expertise, i.e. plumbing issues, structural issues. And I keep the place reasonably clean, avoid damaging things, ask permission for things that have some permanent effect or show on the outside of the home. I owned rental property myself once, not a happy experience. I never did manage to get a good tenant.